Road-trip! Celebrate “Winespring” at St. Eugene Golf Resort & Casino

Start springwith a celebration of wine, food and wellness!

When you head west across the mountains, spring comes a lot earlier. The sun has more heat, and you can’t help but feel a re-awakening from what has been a cold and lengthy winter in the prairies.

Here’s a great option for the April 6-8 weekend. Head west on Highway 3 through the historic Crowsnest Pass, check out the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre or the Hillcrest Mine tragedy where 189 miners were killed in Canada’s worst coal-mining disaster. It’s a great drive and that will give you some perspective on life and provide many delightful surprises along the way.

Set your sites on Cranbrook, BC and the St. Eugene Golf Resort & Casino for WineSpring, a wine tasting and appreciation festival. The resort partners with wineries and vineyards from across the Okanagan Valley and brings you the very best wines the province has to offer. The event features cool things all weekend long; an amazing plated dinner (see photo gallery), wine-themed classes and excellent live entertainment. The main tasting celebration takes place on the Saturday night, April 7th.

The weekend VIP Package starts at $389/person and includes:

Two night stay at the resort for Friday, April 6th and Saturday, April 7th

Accommodations in a Lodge room (upgrades available upon request and availability)

Complimentary bottle of red or white wine in your room upon arrival

Admission to the Okanagan Five Dinner on Friday night featuring live entertainment by The Talbott Brothers

Access to all classes and seminars on Saturday; including (new this year) our Journey Around Scotland’s Scotch

Entry to the Main Wine Tasting Event on Saturday night including an after party with Burn ‘n’ Mahn Dueling Pianos

St. Eugene has 125 beautifully appointed hotel rooms and suites, 25 of which are in the historic Mission building. Each guestroom offers spectacular views of the Hoo Doo’s, our Championship Golf Course and the Purcell or Rocky Mountains, including the breathtaking Fisher Peak.

Designed by acclaimed architect, Les Furber, and rated by Golf Digest as one of the top three new courses in Canada in 2001, the St. Eugene golf experience features spectacular views of the St. Mary River and the majestic Fisher Peak as our championship course winds its way through open links and rolling woodlands.

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Mike MacDonald, a pioneer of the Canadian standup comedy scene, has died.

The longtime comedian died on Saturday afternoon from heart complications at the Ottawa Heart Institute, his brother J.P. MacDonald said on Sunday.

He was 62.

MacDonald was a regular on the Just for Laughs stage and also appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and Arsenio Hall, and starred in multiple CBC and Showtime specials.

His brother said MacDonald loved nothing more than to make people laugh — something he discovered in high school.

“Obviously it’s easier in high school to make friends if you can make people laugh. But there was more to it than that. He was just really good at it, he was brilliant at it. It always just stuck wit him and that’s what he wanted to do,” said J.P. MacDonald, who is also known by his stage name Johnny Vegas.

MacDonald, who was also a gifted drummer, got his comedy start at an Ottawa punk rock club called the Rotters Club in the 1970s. He prepared a mountain of material: Three 45-minute comedy sets, which J.P. MacDonald noted may be standard for a music gig, but not a comedy one.

“If you try to tell that to young up-and-coming comedian today, I don’t think they’d be able to wrap their head around it, because most young comedians are working on their first five-minute routine,” he said.

“He was that creative, it just flowed from him. Over the years, he wrote hours upon hours of comedy routines and movie scripts and TV scripts. He was very proficient and gifted at his art,” J.P. MacDonald said.

Mike MacDonald kicked a drug-use problem in the late-1980s or early-1990s and had been clean ever since, his brother said. He received a liver transplant about five years ago and became an advocate for organ donations, weaving mention of it into as many sets as he could thereafter, J.P. MacDonald said.

As news of MacDonald’s death spread in the comedy world, social media tributes came pouring in.

“Mike MacDonald probably did more to popularize stand-up in Canada than anyone else of his generation. He inspired many comics in the 1980s & 90s to enter comedy. For most of us, sharing the stage with him for the first time was a really big deal,” writer and comedian Kliph Nesteroff tweeted.

“Respect must be paid. Thank you for the laughs, Mike. Thank you for the work ethic and being a real deal comic influencer,” Kathy Griffin tweeted.

Brent Butt, standup comedian and creator of “Corner Gas,” tweeted that the news left him numb.

“Spent so many nights (late80s/early90s) into the morning, playing cards & laughing ourselves sick. And fighting. Then laughing more,” he wrote.